Catalyst-Free Transamidation of Aromatic Amines with Formamide Derivatives and Tertiary Amides with Aliphatic Amines.

A simple catalyst- and promoter-free protocol has been developed for the transamidation of weakly nucleophilic aromatic amines with formamide derivatives and low-reactivity tertiary amides with aliphatic amines. This strategy is advantageous because no catalyst or promoters are needed, no additives are required, separation and purification is easy, and the reaction is scalable. Significantly, this strategy was further applied to synthesize several pharmaceutical molecules on a gram scale, and excellent yields were achieved.